The Awakening

Posted on 2/23/2016 03:14:00 PM In:
One of the first art installations I remember ever seeing in D.C. was the sculpture, The Awakening.  We visited long before I moved here - I was a kid - and how my father knew to drive (or did we ride bicycles?) out to Hains Point and look at it is a mystery. But he did, we did, I have pictures of me sitting in that hand to prove it, but you might not believe me if I found them because that was mumblesomething years - and pounds - ago.


After I moved to D.C., I returned to visit him often.  I saw him waking up in the Spring, I saw him waking up in the snow, I saw him when Hains Point was under water and I had to wade over to the thumb.  

He is no longer at Hains Point. His bed has been moved to the National Harbor.  I dislike seeing him here, but he is still fodder for children and adults trying to take these oh, so iconic photos of him, and for those who try - and mostly fail - to climb up that giant arm reaching out toward the sky and back down.


And it makes me happy that generations of kids have enjoyed him.

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Snowing... Again

Posted on 2/16/2016 05:20:00 PM
We're on day number five, six, eight, I've totally forgotten, of No School due to "someone saw a snowflake" this year.  

I thought we were doing okay until after like the seventh day in a row of kids home from school, I heard screaming from the bathroom and turned the corner to find two children fighting over a spatula.  And not just fighting, knock-down, drag-out, one of them dragging the other one across the floor by the spatula they were both clutching and screaming about. 

I broke up the fight like Morgan Freeman in Lean On Me.  Grabbed the spatula away from both of them and exclaimed, "Now WHAT is so important about this spatula that you two have to act like animals about it?"

They both stared, wide-eyed and then just said small-ly, "Well... I wanted it."


I can barely form a coherent sentence right now, but I have discovered a really cool app based on Deep Dream that I've spent a lot of time playing with this month. 

It turns this:





Into this:



And this:


Into this:


If anyone wants me, I'll be in the bathroom with the iPad.

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They're Love Balls

Posted on 2/03/2016 04:21:00 PM
We bought these ridiculous Christmas decorations years ago for this project, fully intending to toss them out immediately afterwards, but never got around to that part.  They've been kicking around in the attic ever since.  This year we moved everything and they got put in with the Christmas decorations, so I put them outside on the Narnia lamp post.

It's February now, and even though it would take almost no effort and less than four minutes, I still haven't gone out there to take them down.   I'm like that person who leaves their lights on year round and tries to tell you they're just up early for next year.  Perhaps I could leave the pink and red ones and try to convince people it's for Valentine's Day.

 


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Hairy Ice Balls

Posted on 2/02/2016 04:08:00 PM
I know, I know.  I'm a 14 year old boy at heart.

Looks like someone stayed out too long in the snow.



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Now Are the Foxes

Posted on 2/01/2016 02:57:00 PM
One night when we were coming home in the car late last November, we turned the corner to find a group of three or four deer gamboling through the neighborhood. And when I say "gambol,"  I use that not to be pretentious, but because that's the only word that effectively describes what they were doing... prancing and jumping about with no clear direction or leader.  I'm not one to over-anthropomorphize animals but it's hard to see them as doing anything else besides just "goofing around."

Then we looked a little lower to the ground and realized they weren't alone.  They had a small fox companion, who was jumping and running along with them in and out, underneath their feet, probably chasing after whatever small rodents they were kicking up from under the leaves.  

We've heard tell of fox in this neighborhood and I saw one a couple of times last year, but much like the coyote I kept seeing last Spring, no one believed me because they didn't actually see it themselves.  

This year, the fox is back and he's brought a girlfriend.  We've seen them both hunting in our yard in the early mornings.  They're gorgeous and fascinating to watch.  They'll split up and circle around the house in opposite directions, then meet again around the other side.  And we'll "chase" them around the house, try to get a glimpse out of the side window, then the back then the girls' bedrooms, and so on.  One morning I saw one trotting off with a squirrel in it's mouth.  When they appear, you'll first see all the squirrels go up the trees and then start chittering and shaking and waving their tails wildly in warning.  If you notice this happening and keep an eye pealed, then soon will be the foxes!



This morning, I happened to have my camera close enough to grab it before they were gone.  They're hard to photograph because they move so fast but I did get one decent picture as proof.




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Washington, D.C. Metro, United States
Married, 40ish mom of two (or three, or four, depending on how you keep score) who stepped through the lookinglass and now finds herself living in curiouser and curiouser lands of Marriage, Motherhood, and the Washington, D.C. Metro Area.

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